Fasting food and coffee

 I have quickly acquainted myself with the coffee shops and delicious Ethiopian food here.  What a change from the instant Nescafe coffee, mashed bananas and goat stew of Uganda!  The streets in my neighborhood are filled with small “hole in the wall” cafes.  Even the most humble of these coffee sanctuaries can boast large gleaming red or silver espresso machines ready to make your next powerful makiato (coffee and steamed milk).  I have found great joy on my weekends taking long excursions through the city with only vague destinations in mind.  My sole mission is to walk until I find the next café.  I would sit damp from sweat yet relaxed sipping the sweet dark brew for 15 or 20 minutes and then dive back into the smog and bustle to see what I could see! 

Coffee has a strong tradition in Ethiopia but in an authentic coffee shop they tend to drink their java in supercharged doses of 4 to 6 ounces and sweet enough to make your teeth hurt.  Only the influence of the Italians has lead to the addition of espresso machines and steamed milk to the mixture.  The traditional method of making coffee is to grind up the beans using a wooden mortar and a wood or metal pestal.  The grounds are placed into an ornamental, narrow necked wooden carafe with the boiling water.  The carafe has a slender spout that, due to the narrow necked design, pours the steeped coffee while retaining the grounds.  Yes, I can talk about coffee for hours on end but I should give due credit to the food as well!

Currently it is the lent fasting season which eliminates the eating of meat for the 40 days leading up to Easter and the menus at the local restaurants honor this piety in delicious ways.  Vegetarian dishes are prepared and served in small quantities.  There are 8-12 veggie dishes per plate each having its own unique appearance and flavor and served on large round pieces of fresh injera bread.  The meal is aptly named beyayeneto (pronounced bay-ann-o-too) , meaning a variety of foods.  Many of the dishes are made from lentils accompanying marinated beets, potatoes and carrots, hot chili peppers, and an assortment of other vegetable delights.  It is always prepared fresh and on top of a large round pancake of injera bread, usually about two feet in diameter.

Injera is one of the major staples of the Ethiopian diet.   The consistency of injera is that of a soft spongy bread.  It is fermented for two days after the watery-like dough has been prepared.  It is made from a highly diverse and resilient grain crop known as tef.  When I mentioned to a co-worker of mine that I had eaten injera in restaurants in Uganda and Ethiopia he merely scoffed at me.   He stated that in most restaurants outside of Ethiopia injera is made from wheat flour and should by no means be considered authentic Ethiopian fare.  After the fermentation is complete it is poured onto a large hot pan and cooked like a pancake.  The slightly tangy sourness of the injera sets off the flavors of the vegetarian smorgasbord wonderfully.  From the moment I arrived I have not gone a day without eating some of this excellent local cuisine. 

Addis

After spending just two weeks in Addis Ababa Ethiopia I’ve realized this will be unlike any East African experience to date.  I landed in Addis one month ago to a cool evening.  Landing with a visa in hand I zipped through customs and escaped into the night ecstatic to be released from the confines of the steel capsule that had imprisoned me for the previous 16 hours on the flight over the Pacific from Nova Scotia.  I was driven to my hotel in a taxi vehicle produced by the company Lada from Russia.  These vehicles are ultra compact, gutless cars that seem to struggle on the slightest incline but are well known for their excellent gas mileage and simple design, facilitating easy maintenance.  With my head pressed against the roof we belched along for 15 minutes, and I was dropped off in front of a large newly built 10 story hotel, the Desalegn.  I had arrived.

Over the last month, orienting myself, I came to the realization that Addis Ababa is a large and very-fast growing city.  Everywhere I would look I could see buildings going up with their wild wooden pole scaffolding nailed together and looking like balsa wood stick structures, like I used to build in grade school, encapsulating the growing concrete and steel structures within.

 I experienced the city driving around with the manager of Oxfam Canada offices in East Africa and the Horn of Africa.  She lived in the Ethiopian Capitol last ten years ago and has made countless visits since, yet she could not contain her amazement at the changes in infrastructure that had gone in almost overnight.   Where once slums or small markets bustled with daily activities, giant modern buildings had taken their place.  This is a massive city, more modern and faster growing than any I have seen in my journeys through Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

If you ask a local person how many people live in Addis Ababa they just tend to shake their head with a small grin and say "who knows."  Some say 3 million people and others estimate it at 5.  Some say it doesn't even matter because the growth is happening so quickly once you secure a census it is already outdated.

In an attempt to find respite from the smog and congestion of my neighborhood, one weekend, I looked to climb the highest prominence in the area, a small hill elevated 600 or 700 vertical feet above the 8000ft base elevation upon which the city rests.

I began walking along the busy highways near my house and then turned onto paved side roads that ran through the more affluent neighborhoods with walls spiraled with razor wire and bougainvillea bushes bursting with flowers.  Keeping the hill in my sights, I eventually came to a rocky-unleveled road that led me up onto the flanks of the hill and between corrugated metal shacks and funky wooden shops and then on to old narrow stone paths, likely built by the Italians, which led straight up the hillside.  These stone paths gave way to old footpaths and heavily eroded drainages that I climbed making my way towards the modest summit.  Reaching at the top of the hill I expected to see on the other side a glimpse of rural Ethiopia.  To my amazement I found another arm of this massive city sprawling out below me.  Unknown millions of people and growing!

A new path

Just about one and a half months ago I was informed that I had been offered a 6 month internship in Ethiopia with Oxfam Canada.  This is my new blog to record and share my experiences from this internship.  Oxfam is a major international organization that supports livelihoods and equality throughout the world by supporting local partner organizations with resources and training in developing nations.  I find myself here largely by coincidence. However, in a roundabout way, my path to Ethiopia led through my previous volunteer position working in Southwest Uganda on water and sanitation projects for Rotary International. 


I worked in SW Uganda with the heavily marginalized Batwa people in 2008 and 2009. My partners and I observed a strong lack of engagement of the Batwa communities on the water and sanitation projects that we were initiating.  The projects were intended to reduce water borne disease and death among their children but we found strong resistance in the communities to participate on their own water and sanitation projects.  We realized the hard way what it means to work on a project that has a top down approach to development.  That is, an approach that conceives of a project without in-depth input and involvement from the community on the front end. 


We were continually faced with the challenge of communities unwilling to participate in our projects because the projects, while not necessarily unwanted, were not conceived of initially in partnership with the community members themselves.  There was also a strong aid dependency of the communities caused by the conditioning of NGOs in the area who were better known for providing handouts rather than hand ups.  In an effort to improve our approach our team of volunteers began to research effective approaches that catalyzed community engagement and participation in projects.


Through research, one of our dedicated volunteers, Maria Ryan, came across an organization known as the Coady International Institute (please follow the sidebar link to learn more about the Coady).  The Coady Institute is a research and learning based organization dedicated to community driven development.  That is a type of development that focuses on supporting and respecting the existing cultural practices and assets of communities while improving their ability to organize effectively around their own initiatives.  Maria began a dialogue with staff member Brianne Peters at the Coady which eventually led to my enrollment in the three week certificate course there last Fall in Nova Scotia called, “Mobilizing assets for community-driven development.”


While I was there I learned that the Coady was involved in a partnership with Oxfam on an exciting 8 year pilot project using community based approaches in Ethiopia.  Having moved on from my volunteer position in Uganda, when I was informed of an internship opening, I immediately jumped at the opportunity.  I wanted to participate in a development process that for once put the community in the driver’s seat and puts the NGO in the role of supporting the community’s initiatives.  More to come on the work in the coming days and months, stay tuned!